Parental Development

This week's episode talks through ways parents use dishonesty and threats to manipulate the behavior of their kids.

In this week's 'What in the Week,' we again talk through ways to hold boundaries for our kids while being gentle and validating the feelings and reactions to our kids. There's a difference in trying to manage how our kids feel about boundaries and managing their behavior. Gentle parenting does not allow kids to do whatever they want. It DOES allow kids to have whatever reaction and feeling they want.

For some reason, we feel validated in our dishonesty with our kids if it's meant to change their behavior, while also being incensed if our kids lie to us or use dishonest means to get their way or what they want.

If you try to impose a boundary you can't enforce, by definition you are practicing permissive parenting. It's also not healthy to use the threat of loss of relationship to manipulate the behavior or kids.

Ultimately, I am not trying to raise well behaved kids, I'm trying to raise healthy adults. If we protect our kids so much from making mistakes and messing up, we also insulate them from resiliency, problem solving, critical thinking, and repair. Eventually our kids are going to make mistakes, and we believe if they can do that in small ways while they have the support of their family and support system, their prognosis will be much better.

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On this episode, we have our very first guest: Leah's 9 year old son, Lincoln! He shares his unique perspective on ways grown ups can help our kids manage emotions and learn ways to handle stress.

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Many parents use their relationship as a bargaining chip and tool to manage their kids' behavior, which can be problematic. This episode talks through this strategy  and some of the unintended consequences that might come as a result, and gives alternative ways to prioritize our relationship with our kids.

Often because we recognize how important attachment is for our kids, we then turn around and use that same attachment as a way to try to change kids' behavior and 'teach them a lesson.' This type of approach makes it almost impossible to feel safe and secure in relationships, which we know is required for kids to behave well and manage their emotions and behaviors.

Attempting to manipulate kids' behaivor by withholding love and connection can send really dangerous messages, that our relationship with them is dependent on their behavior, and if they don't meet our requirements, we'll withhold the very thing they so desperately crave.

Research is incredibly clear that kids learn through experiences as opposed to words. Connection, regulation, safety, and security cannot be taught and truly believed if we simply tell our kids about those concepts. They have to EXPERIENCE connection, safety, regulation, and security with us in order to believe that those concepts are true and can be trusted.

Relationship is ALWAYS the solution, not a tool to use to manipulate behavior.

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This episode is tough, but important. After a local completed suicide by a teenager, we wanted to talk about lessons learned and ways to protect our kids as much as possible.

All of this information illustrates clearly the importance of starting to have hard conversations with your kids from an early age. The teenagers I talked to talked about how bad their mental health is and how their parents respond to them whenever they talk about their struggles. Overall, teenagers feel invalidated and unsupported by the adults around them and don't have an outlet to actually communicate their thoughts and feelings.

Teenagers are supposed to be selfish and self-centered and their struggles are always going to feel like it's the worst.  Even if we as parents don't understand or believe what they're going through is hard or legitimate, we can respond with validation and support.

If you have a difficult relationship with your teenager, it's really hard for them to take you seriously and trust you when you act differently only when there's some kind of emergency or crisis.  It's our responsibility as parents to make sure we're meeting our kids' attention and connection needs in healthy, safe ways, to hopefully minimize the need for them to get that in a more negative way.

The big things have to be ok with us as parents, and that starts when the "big" thing is that someone wouldn't sit beside them at lunch or their Pokemon cards. Everything is important to them and it's supposed to be, and it's crucial that what's important to them is important to me, always. If we only respond when what they're talking about reaches a level that we deem important as adults, we teach them we don't care about the other stuff.

It's important we're starting to have conversations with our kids, even when they're uncomfortable. We give some thoughts about how those conversations can go and how you can talk to your kids, without giving them all the details and information, and protecting them as much as possible.
 
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We're back! We took a brief hiatus because of stuff going on in our lives, but we're excited to have a conversation about boundaries!!

Some people who don't understand this type of parenting believe there are no boundaries for our kids, and even parents who do parent this way struggle to know how to hold a boundary in a safe, connected, supportive way. If we can start to expect that our kids will have a negative reaction to the boundary, it can make it easier to respond with respect and connection as opposed to anger and coercion. Just expect your kids to hate the boundaries!

Parents often struggle to hold boundaries when:
1. We want to avoid their negative reactions
2. We don't have the energy
3. Their feelings are too much for us to handle

All of these reasons are valid and important to recognize and understand, because moving boundaries due to negative behavior is permissive parenting, and can be really detrimental to our relationship with our kids and makes it hard for them to know how to comply with expectations.

Our homes should be different than the rest of the world, and we don't accept that we have to mistreat our kids to prepare them for the worst of the world.  It's like people need to be toughened up so they know how to be mistreated better. Instead we want kids to know how to advocate for themselves, end relationships with people who mistreat them, etc.

It is not our child's job to figure out how to not trigger you. It is your job to figure out how to not be triggered. Being triggered is our work to do and important that we learn how to respond to our kids even when we're triggered. There truly are ways to hold boundaries with empathy and validation, and that is really important as our kids age.

Allowing and expecting our kids to have reactions to our boundaries teaches our kids that their thoughts and feelings matter, and helps them learn ways to disagree respectfully, resolve conflict, share their opinions, etc. Check out this post that gives great insight into what our kids think about our interactions with them.

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In this episode, Leah finishes explaining Polyvagal Theory, and how the ladder helps us understand the state we and our kids are in - Safe and Connected, Fight or Flight, or Collapse/Shut down. The sisters talk about the importance of us staying in "Safe and Connected" so we can bring our kids with us, into the only state where they can actually hear us, listen to us, follow directions, and solve problems. We must pay attention to and insert cues of safety for our kids, such as tone of voice, posture, and facial expressions.

It's important  that we remain a safe place for our kids, so we can hear the "stories" they tell themselves so we can correct them, validate them, and help them problem solve situations that are uncomfortable or difficult. As parents, we have to remain curious to uncover what their behavior is actually trying to communicate, and trust that if it doesn't make sense, their nervous system is doing what it thinks is best to keep them safe.

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In this episode Leah really nerds out on the neuroscience associated with this type of parenting - did you know we have more than 5 senses?!   She discusses several different theories and research, including the science of interoception, Allan Schore's paper on regulation and attachment, and Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory. While this information may be difficult to take in and fully understand, it also supports many of the ideas and interventions associated with parenting our kids from this perspective.

We want our kids to feel safe and connected, recognizing that the concept of neuroception means we're constantly scanning for danger. As parents, we don't want to be a sign of danger or feeling unsafe, requiring us to look at our response to our kids differently.

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We're planning a Q&A episode!! Send us your questions to [email protected]!!

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Where are our teachers? This episode is specifically for you! We've gotten questions about how you might implement this type of parenting/relationship building in a classroom, so we decided to talk about it!

Before we can talk about classroom management strategies, we HAVE to remember the brain science associated with our kids. If you're not familiar with that, listen here, here, and here! When kids (or adults) have flipped their lid, they are incapable of learning new information, making good choices, and processing language.

If you are contributing signs of danger to kids when they are dysregulated, their nervous systems will not allow them to calm or follow directions. Signs of danger include yelling, angry facial expressions, threatening  body posture, etc. These responses to behavior will ALWAYS lead to increased dysregulation and more poor behavior.

1. Consider your non-negotiables - these should generally only be safety related (physical, emotional, social, academic safety)
2. If you are constantly triggered by the same behaviors, you may want to look at that for yourself and try to determine what is driving that feeling in you

Sometimes teachers feel like if they don't stay firm on everything, they might lose control and this is really more of a myth. The more boxed in people feel the more this will trigger their systems. The more flexibility and negotiation you can integrate into your classroom, the more kids will feel in control and responsible for themselves.

Our #1 tip for managing behavior in the classroom: LET KIDS LISTEN TO THEIR BODIES!!! Let them:

• go tothe bathroom when they need to
• eat when they're hungry
• stand up when they need to
• move around to regulate
• take a break when needed

Discipline is a hot button topic in most schools and classrooms, with lots of differing opinions. In our opinion, behavior charts generally create shame, embarrassment, and guilt in kids, which research has shown does not actually change behaviors long term and can do more damage, particularly for the kids who struggle behaviorally.  This is true even for adults, which has been identified here.  If you want more information on how these charts and systems are problematic, check out this article, or this video.

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This episode continues our discussion about gender and parenting, talking through how to raise resilient girls.

Overall, we want our daughters to own their voice and opinions, be confident in their thoughts and feelings, and to understand their worth and that it's not dependent on anyone else.

Similar to boys, we want to avoid most of the gender stereotypes, including clothing, toys, and activities.  We always want to model healthy relationships and gender roles/norms. How you structure your family and divide responsibilities is not what's most important, but instead how you talk about those roles and responsibilities is what will teach your kids how to think about these activities.

It's very important that our girls learn that they are not responsible for the behavior of other people. This can start really small but grow as they age to make them responsible for the anger, sadness, violence, or assult of other people.

Research has clearly demonstrated the impact social media has on our girls and their self esteem, mental health, and social well being. Research has also shown that basic education about how social media works can help protect our girls from the negative effects of social media as they enter adolescence.

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This episode talks about some things to consider for those of us raising boys within this style of parenting.

Most of our boys get messages throughout their childhood that value strength, minimizing emotional expression, and leadership.  This teaches them to ignore their emotions and the messages their body is sending, for the sake of appearing strong and in control.

Emotional intelligence has generally been determined to be greater in girls when compared to boys.  We tend to expect heightened emotionality from our girls, and we often respond accordingly, which integrates those messages more and more.

We often celebrate strength, power, and toughness while minimzing emotions such as hurt, pain, embarrassment, or sadness, we teach them what is important and how one is better than the other. Without validating every emotion and allowing those to be expressed, we disconnect them from themselves, making it difficult for them to communicate, understand, and manage their emotions appropriately.

Many of the messages we send have a tendency to teach our boys that they are better than girls or girls are not as smart, strong, or capable than other boys or men.  We have to throw away virtually all stereotypes, such as colors, toys, chores, etc. We also need to teach about healthy relationships - people are not allowed to touch their body if they don't want them to, and they should not touch another person if they don't want them to.

It's unrealistic to believe that the way our kids interact and process emotions, relationships, and behaviors can automatically change when our kids become adults. Neurons that fire together, wire together, so it's crucial for us to teach them healthy, appropriate ways of expressing themselves, communicating with others, and devloping healthy relationships.

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